New Camden police officers get to know their neighborhood

CAMDEN — The abandoned house showed signs of rampant crack, heroin and marijuana use throughout its debris-cluttered, stale-smelling rooms.

The basement housed half-looted boxes of DVDs, while the upstairs levels were littered with empty drug bags, tin-foil pipes and vials. Upstairs, the item holding most of the attention among the four Camden County police officers was a closet door, covered with the territorial markings of gangs.

“Right here, it says ‘PSM,’ which is Parkside Mafia — this is Parkside, so this is their territory,” said Ptl. Argenis Bernard, a former Camden City police officer before he made the transfer to the county’s Metro Division. We went on pointing out rival gangs that had left their mark.

“This here, ‘CMD,’ stands for Camden — ‘Cash, Money, Drugs,” he added. “That’s a respect and pride thing. They may not have a lot, but they’re proud.”

Currently, there are just 24 of them now, and they are focusing only on the city’s Parkside neighborhood. However, 70 more will begin field training come Sunday, in another neighborhood. And with 80 new officers set to be sworn in on Monday, more will follow until the 401-officer department is filled to capacity.

The abandoned house, on Magnolia Avenue, proved to be the most eventful part of the early afternoon rounds made by three such recruits, led by Ptl. Bernard.

Walking the streets, they greeted neighbors, visited local businesses and inspected vacant properties.

“These walking patrols make a lot of difference,” said Bernard, who was a member of the last class of new officers, hired in 2010, by the Camden City Police Department, which is fated for liquidation on April 30. “We tried to implement it before, but we just didn’t have the personnel.”

He described how the foot patrols help after he and the other officers stopped to chat with a trio of young men standing outside a small market.

“If we come back there later, they’re probably not going to be there anymore, if they’re up to no good,” he said. “They see us and they scatter — they know they have to go somewhere else.

“And we’re seeing fewer and fewer people who scatter the more we’re out here.”

Jesse Henderson, one of the new recruits who previously served as an investigator with the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office, said he decided to leave for Camden because of the greater opportunity for growth and more assignments.

He described his field training experience so far as positive.

“People seem really happy to see us, and it’s good to see more and more kids outside playing the more we’re out here,” said Henderson. “People are just a little worried that we’re not going to stick around, but this is going to be our area.”

Henderson drew parallels between Camden and the previous police work he’d done in Trenton as an investigator.

“I try not to have any preconceived notions, and take everything in stride,” he said.

Jim Lopez came to the metro division as a campus police officer at the College of New Jersey.

However, “negative” is how many former Camden City police officers feel about how they feel city and county officials pushed them out of their jobs. Two former officers, who both retired on April 1, criticized the county police plan as a whole, arguing the new recruits are too unfamiliar with the city.

“It came to a point where they didn’t want the (police) union anymore, so they abolished the department,” said Tracey Hall, who retired after serving slightly more than 20 years as an officer in Camden. “It was clear when they started talking about a ‘Change in culture’ — what that meant to me was that they wanted to get rid of the seasoned veterans, so they could have more control.”

Hall refused to apply for the county department, taking the application process as an affront to her experience.

“The application itself was an insult to me as an officer,” she said. “They asked me what makes me qualified to be on the county department, and told me that I have to re-take a psych evaluation.

“So, yesterday I’m an officer with a gun, and today you say I have to be checked if I have mental problems?”

Tyree Nobles, a U.S. Marine and Desert Storm veteran, retired a sergeant after 23 years on the police department. He also characterized the county public safety plan as a “power grab.”

“I humbly agree that changes need to be made, but they kept the same leadership,” he said. “Now, the leadership gets to pick who they want, promote who they want, and anyone who bucked the leadership is on their way out.

“All they did was change the name and then pick their personnel.”

Unlike Hall, Nobles applied to transfer to the county police department, but later dropped out of the process when he learned only three of his more than 10 years as a sergeant would be honored.

“It was for a lesser salary, and when I pointed that out, they just started shouting at me, ‘Sign here, sign here,’” he said. “I stood up and said I wasn’t signing anything. I’ve spoken to come who did sign, and a lot took pay cuts and surrendered holiday and sick time.”

Now with two functional departments policing the city, both Hall and Nobles described relations between the city and county officers as “cold.”

“I know there are some officers I spoke to who can’t even look at the county officers,” said Nobles.

Hall stated there has been no outward conflict, but little communication between the two departments, either.

“The county officers don’t speak to the city officers,” she said.

As of Friday, multiple county police vehicles could be seen patrolling the area around City Hall, and more are expected to soon join them on the streets throughout Camden.

By April 30, the department’s official “stand up” day, the county police will have 260 officers.

To Sultan Rasheed, a resident of Parkside selling his business’ hand-made soaps when the trainees greeted him, the new department’s challenge will be placing greater pressure on crime without “always focusing on the negative.”

“Everything they’re doing is fine with me — we’re not doing anything illegal,” he said. “Just support us, too. It’s not all negative. You can’t just look at the bad things, because there are good things, too”